When I first started homeschooling, one attractive element of Sonlight’s curriculum was the fact that each age level contains missionary biographies or autobiographies.
Learning about the lives of missionaries—their successes, failures, hardships, and devotion— is awe-inspiring. That awe is something I wanted to introduce to my children.
In the eight years we have homeschooled, they have always begged for more missionary stories. I am thankful Sonlight makes these books a priority and includes them in each History / Bible / Literature level.
Missionary stories are thrilling, heartbreaking, encouraging, and sometimes hard to hear. But even the most heart wrenching events don’t need to deter us from reading them.
I know your family will benefit from them just as my family has for so many years. Here are three major benefits you will discover on your journey with each missionary.
1. Missionary Stories Inspire Us to Seek God
Have you ever finished a book so inspired that you felt you would burst from elation if you didn’t act on the knowledge you just learned?
Missionary stories can inspire us to the point of action—towards other people, towards ourselves, or towards God.
There have been many, many family conversations that resulted from reading missionary stories. Those conversations have drawn us closer to God and helped us talk through hard spiritual questions. The testimonies of missionaries' lives have been an example of how we need to seek God and walk with Him daily, asking Him to use us to further His kingdom.
Sometimes real stories from real people help our children see their need for Jesus in their own life. These amazing testimonies still speak to us and point us to Christ. They also inspire us parents to be more devoted in our own relationship with Christ.
2. Missionary Stories Introduce Us to Peoples of the World
When we study geography or history, we can learn facts and figures and hope that we might remember them a week from now. But with the help of a true story—of real people, and real events in a certain place or time period, all the facts come to life.
The vibrant beauty of stories makex history more memorable. Missionary biographies introduce us to complex people, authentic culture, and one-in-a-lifetime experiences, that will fully educate us about the people in our world, past and current.
3. Missionary Stories Motivate Us to Serve
Not only do these stories draw us closer to God and help us learn about other people, missionary biographies also show us that there is a whole world of people out there to serve.
These inspirational stories challenge us to get beyond our comfort zone to help those in physical, emotional, and spiritual need. Reading the stories of these faithful, yet everyday, servants motivates us to follow suit.
What greater legacy to leave our children than to teach them how to serve and love others by looking for the needs around them and in the world beyond their boundaries?
Relive the amazing adventures of the godly men and women who have gone before us with an open heart, ready to allow God to use their story to challenge you.
What are you waiting for? Go grab your books, gather round as a family, and set off on an incredible journey with a missionary today and see the benefits that are waiting for your family.
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